


Your Skin and Bones

by Pinkerton



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mythology, Angst with a Happy Ending, Battle, Experiments in writing style, Kent’s anime eyes, M/M, Mythology - Freeform, Non-Graphic Violence, Not Really Character Death, Reincarnation, Temporary Character Death, War, inspired by Song of Achilles sort of?, not as dire as these tags make it seem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-27 23:12:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15035408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pinkerton/pseuds/Pinkerton
Summary: Kent and Jack are warriors across the ages, destined to fall, destined to reunite.





	Your Skin and Bones

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LaBelleIzzy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaBelleIzzy/gifts).



> Warning: Jack and Kent die and reincarnate multiple times in this story. The deaths are non-graphic.

The morning air has a chill that will soon give way to the gentle heat of early summer, holding the promise of long days of lounging, sun-drunk and happy.

Jack stirs next to him, and Kent takes a moment to gaze, a stolen chance to make one more memory. He’s rucked their blanket down to his waist, always running hotter than Kent, always a reason to curl against him in the winter. His chest, muscled and beautiful, rises and falls steadily. Kent has mapped every inch of it out with his lips, tasted and teased and claimed. 

Jack’s shoulders, broad and strong and, in sleep, free of burdens, carry the faint imprint of Kent’s fingers from the night before. 

They’d fought as the sun set, Jack’s strategies for victory at odds with Kent’s strategies to keep him safe. The words that had tumbled out of Kent’s mouth were as vicious as any battlefield melee. Jack had stood stoically through it all, a single quiver giving him away as he turned his back and walked away. 

When he’d returned to their tent in the deep dark of night, Kent had let another flood of words spill, words of sorrow and regret, but Jack had pressed his lips against Kent’s, swallowing the anguish.

The sounds that escaped after were the language of the night, soft and breathless, sharp and keening.

The light now coming in through the covering of their shelter grows. It’s time to rise. Kent allows himself one more indulgence, a gentle trace of his fingers over Jack’s face, praying his touch lingers long enough for Jack to carry it with him as a shield and a brand, protection and claim. 

He rouses Jack with soft kisses, skimming his hand down to where the morning has awoken Jack’s desire. Jack shifts and reaches for Kent; they touch one another, face to face, breathing the same air. 

Jack stills his hand and squints as he looks in Kent’s eyes, the same ritual every morning, without fail. “Green,” he whispers, and Kent closes his eyes so Jack can kiss there, soft as silk. 

When he opens them, Jack smiles. “Still green.”

After their pleasure comes, they lie together a moment longer. 

It’s been twenty-one years, five months, and three days of life for Kent, and six years and two weeks since he and Jack found each other again.

Maybe this day, it won’t happen. 

Maybe this time, they’ve done well enough for the gods to reward them with time.

They leave the tent, and Kent prays as he does every day, that they’ll return to it, together, that night. 

The battle is fierce and unrelenting. He sees it happen, the sword slicing into Jack, his beautiful body falling to the ground, now a thing to be trodden upon by the advancing enemy, and Kent screams, his limbs remembering their training, still fighting without his knowledge or concern.

When he falls, it is with a smile on his lips. 

* * * * 

It’s like the womb, as comforting as soaking in hot water at the end of a day; Kent floats and waits. He is at rest yet restless, content yet in unending anticipation.

There is no time, there is nothing physical in this realm, so he lets himself expand and contract, gently bouncing off the swirls of other consciousnesses, some in rapid succession, some so spread out he wonders if he’s somehow escaped, if he has truly finished. 

A tendril brushes against him and sparks singe across his formless form as his green haze of awareness is slowly covered in blue, shimmering and glowing stronger as it spreads into and around him. 

It starts slow, a pulse that picks up a rhythm, and Kent melts as it expands, as it strengthens, as it escalates into sensations as orgasmic as making love, as painful as the battlefield, and as steady as the sun. 

If he could, he would greet Jack with words, but there are no such things here. 

They twine together, intractable, beyond the concept of forever, beyond the idea of love, and Kent will take the pleasure and the pain, take it all, as long as it is Jack giving it to him. 

* * * *

Blue coats and muskets, fatigues and mustard gas, terrifying propeller planes and bombs, they find each other over and over, and fight side by side, laying waste to enemies, and always, in the end, themselves.

“Open them for me, baby,” Jack says one morning, his fingers stroking Kent’s filthy hair as they shiver in a foxhole. Kent does, and after a few seconds of study, Jack has his answer. “Amber. Like fresh honey.”

Another morning, another realm. They’re hiding in a tree after a night of fitful rest tied together, too worried of falling to truly sleep. They can smell the fire coming. Jack cups Kent’s face softly, kisses him. “Lavender,” he says when they part, anchoring his gaze to Kent’s as they are consumed in flame. 

They’re on a coast, everything covered in a fine morning mist. Jack reaches for Kent’s face, then hesitates. “Maybe,” he says softly, “if I don’t say it, it won’t happen.”

Kent wants to slap him; instead, he grabs him and gives him a hard shake; he can’t risk not having Jack’s full attention. “If you don’t say it, you won’t be able to find me.”

Jack knocks his hands off his shoulder and kisses him, hard and bruising. “I will always, always, find you.”

And he does, over and over and over again.

* * * *

It’s sixteen years, three months, and twenty days before they find each other in an old industrial town, warriors of a stripe they’d never imagined, skating instead of marching, injuries patched with the greatest of care, soft beds and soft lives.

Kent slips into Jack’s lodging place that night through the bedroom window, and there are no words needed as they embrace, as they wind themselves together as tight and close as they can, Kent pressed deep inside Jack, his face against Jack’s neck, feeling the heartbeat there, the rush of life flowing through his veins.

Things are different this time. The game they play truly that, just a game, not training for war, or a distraction from impending death. 

Kent loves it, loves the speed on the ice, the high of danger but the relief of the whistle’s safety, the brotherhood that has a promise of endurance.

He and Jack revel in it, thrive, grow. They partake in all the pleasure this life has to offer, abundantly and without regard. They’ll be separated in distance by this game, eventually, but this world has so many ways to return them to each other that Kent is unconcerned. He can feel it in his bones, in his soul, in every part of his body that has been knit from ether to flesh time after time. They are healthy, whole, and safe. Together.

This is their reward.

* * * *

Jack falls.

Kent catches him.

Jack lives.

Kent still loses him.

* * * * 

“Is it that you want to live? You already did. Come back to me.” Kent can hear the way his words slip away from the speech of his teammates in this age to the cadence of their shared history; he can hear the plea in his voice, unbecoming of a warrior. He doesn’t care.

“It’s not that.” Jack’s voice through the receiver is something Kent has grown to love and to hate. It’s Jack’s voice, it’s the closest thing he has to peace, but it’s not Jack’s body, warm and right and beside Kent.

He growls in frustration. “What is it? What? What is so good on this earth that you would forsake me?”

“It’s...I didn’t mean...Kenny, you have to --” 

“Is it that pitiful family you have? A faded swordsman and a princess? Is that who you’ve replaced me with?”

“No.”

“Then what? You know you aren’t capable of fighting without me. You’re useless --”

The line goes dead.

* * * *

Kent fights alone on the ice, until his army around him becomes like family, giving and taking courage and strength, lifting cups together after what passes for battle, bruised and exhausted and whole. 

They are his brothers, but he leaves them one night, shrouded in secrecy, and goes to Jack, pries him away from the crush of people around him, embraces him, kisses his mouth, the sweetness of his lips no different over a millennium. 

When Jack pushes him away, Kent opens his eyes and gasps.

There’s the barest tint of yellow encroaching around Jack. In all the time that has passed, never has Jack had anything around him but his sharp, icy blue, and never in this realm.

They’ve been apart too long, and it has changed Jack into something beyond Kent’s understanding.

He wants to die.

Instead he lets rage consume him.

It’s worse when on his way to leave, on his way to walk away from Jack forever, his eyes catch on a glint of yellow surrounding a boy in the corner, clutching a red cup and smiling.

* * * *

Kent exists, and Kent plays hockey. He joins in merriment, forms bonds that are echoes of what he and Jack had, finding that he truly enjoys the time spent with these men who are not warriors but are not without courage. He builds a home and fills it with enticing things so that his teammates will spend time with him and his animal companion there. 

Over seasons, they share scars both seen and unseen with one another and tell the stories of how they came to be. It does not heal them, as they are already formed, but it does take away some of the pain.

Maybe, Kent thinks, this is what it is to live. 

* * * *

It’s mid-afternoon on a summer day when Kent steps out of the shower following a swim in his pool. He runs a towel over his hair and ties it around his waist, then freezes as he looks in the mirror.

A tinge of yellow, over his heart.

He rubs his eyes. 

Still yellow. 

He bends over the sink, splashes water on his face, rinses his eyes until they sting, his mind a screaming plea that when raises his head he’ll see cold blue. 

Still yellow. 

He howls, then crumples, which is where Jack finds him moments later, scooping him into his arms, soothing him with caresses and kisses, gathering him and carrying him to his bed, setting him down with the greatest of care.

Kent surfaces from his anguish, touches Jack’s face. “How?”

Jack shrugs. “You really should lock your front door.”

“Oh my god. Really?”

Jack smiles, the smile that crinkles his eyes, and if this is an illusion, something that is going to be swept away, Kent will still take it. “Kenny, we did it.”

“What?” Kent’s having trouble focusing, lost in Jack’s eyes.

“Well, not us. We had it wrong. We weren’t meant to be warriors, or, maybe we were, but not anymore.”

“Zimms, you’re not making sense. We’ve been warriors since the dawn of time. Together.”

Jack’s smile grows. “Together, but not complete.” He goes to the closet, lays out clothes on the bed, and dresses Kent, tenderly, carefully, fingers electric as the slide across his skin. 

“You can’t take this away from me again,” Kent says as Jack stoops over to put shoes on his feet. “You can’t be that cruel.”

“I’m not taking, I’m giving.” Jack leads him to the kitchen, sits him down at the table, then walks toward the entryway. Kent hears a door open and shut, and then Jack is back with a man that Kent remembers too well, a man bathed in a glow of yellow.

When the man is also sat at the table, Jack stands next to him and speaks again. “This is Bitty. It took me a long time to figure it out because um, —” Bitty squeezes Jack’s shoulder. He takes a steadying breath and continues. “I always went first. You know, when we...” 

He trails off. 

“When we died?” Kent offers. 

Jack grimaces. “Yes. But it was different this time and I thought maybe...maybe in this life, we get it both.”

“Both?”

Jack looks at Kent, then Bitty, a helpless expression on his face. 

Bitty takes his hand. “Love and life,” Bitty finishes for him. ”Both. But maybe you couldn’t do it alone. Maybe you needed, well, maybe —“

“We always did it together,” Kent interrupts him. “The two of us.” His voice is ragged.

“And we died,” Jack says softly, letting go of Bitty’s hand and kneeling beside Kent. “Over and over, not from time, but from our wars.”

“You didn’t die, this time. You left me,” Kent manages, willing himself not to weep, tears unbecoming and unwanted. 

“It was a chance, and I took it.”

The tears come. “Selfish. Left me and found him. Have you been together?” 

“Yes,” Bitty says from across the table. “We’re together. And we’re happy, but...well, there’s an ache neither of us could figure out. Then, the strangest thing happened when we were making lo -- uh, well, when we were --”

“Lying together?” Kent offers.

“Yes, that. One night Jack just lit up in green --” 

Kent’s breath catches.

“And it scared me half to death. I thought I was going crazy, especially when the next night it was -- “ 

“Honey,” Jack finishes.

Kent’s trembling. “And lavender?”

“Two nights later.”

Kent slumps back in the chair. “My heart had yellow over it this morning.”

“I’m so sorry,” Jack says, voice breaking. “I would have gotten here faster, but --”

“He had some serious explaining to do,” Bitty says, taking over, “and I’m still half convinced we’re both losing it, but, you know. I trust Jack. And he said we both need you. So. Uh, here we are?”

Kent can’t stand it any longer, reaches down and grabs Jack, tumbling them both to the floor and crushing him to his chest. “Is this real?” he whispers into Jack’s ear. “Is this what keeps us tethered?”

“I think so,” Jack answers, tipping his head and kissing Kent.

It’s coming home.

Jack’s mouth is as sweet as Kent remembers, even through the salt of their mingled tears. He gets lost in it, lost in Jack, their bodies remembering things that time could never take away.

Kent is ready to take Jack, there and then, but then Bitty gasps. 

“Sweet merciful Jesus. Y’all. Look!”

Kent and Jack break apart, flushed and breathless.

Stretching from them to Bitty and back is a prismatic light, bright and unwavering.

Kent laughs and laughs, and pulls Jack back to him. “It’s going to take time.”

Jack strokes a finger down Kent’s face. “It’s okay, Kenny. We have it.”

**Author's Note:**

> This one was weird, y'all, but I got inspired by the request for mythical elements and went for it. LaBelleIzzy, if this just doesn't do it for you, let me know and I'll write something else.
> 
> Thank you to the wonderful mods, who do an exceptional job supporting the writers and promoting the challenge!
> 
> The title is from Coldplay's "Yellow." 
> 
> As always, thanks to my white chocolate macadamia nut cookie, my Linzer torte, my stroopwafel, summerfrost, for all the beta work and cheerleading.


End file.
